


Searching Black

by plsnskanks (orphan_account)



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 15:46:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10924980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/plsnskanks
Summary: So foul a sky clears not without a storm





	Searching Black

**Author's Note:**

> I tagged this fic with the "chose not to archive warnings". Which means the tags are incomplete. Do not read this if you are not prepared for the story to end very poorly.
> 
> Anyways here is 9k of very stupid angst

Matt sits down across from the woman who ended everything. Years of war, years of toil, exhaustion, loss. All over. Thanks to her. Some nameless, faceless spy in their organization who managed to sabotage one critical meeting. Who dealt the killing blow to the Red Army.

He wants to put a bullet through her forehead more than he has ever wanted anything in his life.

She did her job. She’s a god damn hero, if there ever was one.

She’s the reason why Tord agreed to sign a treaty, releasing certain territories, locking down borders. They’re at an uneasy peace with this new and unsteady nation. But its peace, and that what no one could have even dreamed of within this decade with how the war was going. It was looking to be one of attrition. But this clever, smart, upstanding, gracious woman…

Is the reason none of them sleep well at night.

Matt tries to put personal grievances aside. He tries to as he shuffles his papers, and prepares to ask his questions. He takes out a recorder and shows it to her.

“Is this alright?”

She nods. He presses start.

“Alright, let’s begin.”  
__________________________-

Tord, you see, was insidious in nature. Even when he wasn’t there. He was. In your thoughts, in your mind. Sometimes the rustle of the leaves on the tree outside his window sounded like his dry laugh. The creak of an old door was like his exhalation. The house settling down at night spoke the echoes of his footsteps.

There was nowhere that wasn’t haunted for him. 

There was no amount of alcohol that could free him from this.

He didn’t even bother watching the news anymore. Tord’s wanted poster was sure to pop up at least once before each commercial break. So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when he had no knowledge of an evacuation warning.

Incoming engagements. War zone. Not safe.

Yeah. Right. If Tord’s army really is coming his way, and they think they can destroy his house and bully him out of his lifestyle again, they have another thing coming. Tom feels that old, prickling sensation on his skin. He can feel a shift at his fingertips. He could just go. Rampage the town before Tord even gets here. Turn it to rubble and ruin by his own hands. Isn’t it better that way?

Scorched earth and all that.

Instead he thanks the men that came to warn him and settles back inside his home. And waits. 

In the dilapidated old home where curdling memories melt and distort, crawling down the walls, filling him with rancid emotions, and rancid thoughts. In this place, he waits. 

Three days later he hears shelling in the distance. He gets another knock on his door but doesn’t bother to answer it this time. He’s made his choice. He doesn’t need anyone trying to force him down from it.

The next time someone is at his door, they don’t knock. They kick it off its hinges and an instant later tramping boots are in his living room and the muzzle of a gun is in his face.

“Red Leader sent an order to evacuate civilians almost a week ago, what are you doing here?” the stern voice asks. Tom looks up at the gun with disinterest and lays back on the couch languidly.

“I’m afraid I don’t really see much reason to listen to a damn thing you, your army, or your leader tell me to do.”

The soldier looks incensed at that, he goes to hit Tom with the butt of his gun. Tom sees it coming a mile away. He shifts halfway. With a clawed hand he bats the gun out of the soldier’s hand. 

Soldier. Ha. Without his gun, he’s some eighteen year old kid too stupid to not get involved in this kind of thing. Tom gives him a long look. He knows he looks intimidating like this. Clawed hands, black eyes, horns coming out of his head. He’s got one foot in hell and there’s no saving him.

He made the mistake of shifting on a Sunday near a church once. Having ten to twenty ardent believers attempt to baptize him at once was a memory he would rather not dwell on for long. Edd used to laugh himself to tears about it every time they passed a church after that.

Edd.

This kid kind of looks like him. It’s not really his coloring. No, he’s got blue eyes and blonde hair. It’s that open look on his face. He probably joined the army just as a gag, an adventure, much like they had done.

When the kid turns on his heel and books it, Tom doesn’t even bother to give chase. He’ll learn his lesson about playing dangerous games. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. War is no place for a little tin soldier too scared to know how to use a gun.

It’s for people who know how to shoot.

And for people who shoot to kill.

Aim center mass. Steady your breathing. Don’t think about it much at night. That’s it. Simple. Easy. Fun, even, if you are demented enough.

Two days later the front half of Tom’s house evaporates. Poof, gone into thin air. Not really. It’s a bunch of rubble on his front lawn. He’s in the back of the house boiling water. At the explosion he is knocked off his feet. Hot water is everywhere, burning his hand, he can smell himself cooking. It’s agony and he is instantly hit with this wall of rage and fear. Every muscle in his body is locking up as he just lies in the scalding water trying to understand what has happened to him and why. His ears are ringing and it sounds like someone screaming in the distance.

It sounds like his mother.

His back hits the ceiling and Tom realizes he has fully shifted without a second thought. He is on his front lawn in a blink. His fist is twisting the main gun of a T-34. It’s like crushing a cola can. He lets it go and turns a one eighty to face a group of twenty or so men. Some are frantically talking into their radios. Some have aimed their weapons at him. All of them look so small. It would be so easy. So, so easy.

He doesn’t do anything to trigger the first volley. They just start firing because some frontline fucktard startles as a bit of rubble settles down. The bullets rebound and ricochet off him. His skin is like armor, and while there are weak spots, Tom hunkers down to make sure none are available. 

“Halt your fire, ” A clear, stern voice calls. In an instant the battlefield silence is returned as trigger fingers find their weary rest. Tom can hear the whisper of wind as it creeps through the empty streets, speaking its solemn tale of old ghosts. He squints at the man who called the order. He’s seen him before. He knows he has.

“Back off, back off. Full retreat,” that same voice calls again. Tom stares at the long haired man with the calm, low tenor voice. He has a nice voice. It doesn’t belong here, out on the battlefield with the rubble and the rotting corpses. He could imagine it in a smoky bar somewhere, telling old stories about childhood and horseback rides and other idealistic things.

He isn’t dressed for war either, with his blood red sweater with two white stripes crisscrossed in the front, and this long cobalt blue jacket. All the other soldiers barring one with similar dress and bushy eyebrows, are wearing camis and a helmet. The smart thing to do in a place where someone is looking to shoot you from as far away as possible.

He gets the sense this man isn’t just any soldier.

Tom startles as the tank behind him moves. He turns to see the tank backing up, mangled gun looking like a straw that had been trampled underfoot several times. All it is is a pillbox on wheels at this point. Tom stands in bewilderment as soldiers and heavy machinery and weaponry on all sides back off. 

He expected to die out here. For someone to call in air support and that would be it. But instead they just surrender like that? No way. No way in hell. That isn’t the Red Army. They’d claw out their own eyes if it would give them a victory.

“I repeat, specimen 617 located, specimen 617 located. Coordinates being transmitted as we speak, ten mile security perimeter being established,” the smooth voice gets fainter and fainter as the distance between them grows. It bounces off the streets and sings a final haunting note as it dies. When Tom can’t hear him anymore, he goes back inside and shifts down.

There are no street lights to stave off the oncoming night anymore. When the dark comes, it is consuming, it swallows him whole in his entirety, and in it Tom feels safe. This, this he will always understand. This he will always connect with. This place of limited sight and sound. Where the outside world is distant and put far, far behind him. Where it is just Tom, and Tom’s thoughts, here they hold a weight and substance that they will never hold in daylight.

It’s lonely sure. But maybe it’s better this way than dying a death of a thousand cuts being near someone like him. He gets to continue breathing this way.

His hands aren’t burned anymore thanks to his healing factor. He doesn’t bother wiping up the now cool water on the tiled floor. The stairs are destroyed. That section of the house, all those memories, possessions, unreachable. Closed off. Finished. It’s okay though. They were only a memorial to what his life used to be.

He sleeps on the couch, after moving it out of the destroyed living room and clearing it of debris. It’s singed and smells awful, some chemical in the stuffing or something smells horrific when burned. Like burnt hair. Maybe Tom’s hair got singed and that’s what he’s smelling.

He listens to the wind blow through the open face of the house while he thinks about idle things until the tension leaves his body and the physical toll of shifting catches up to him. His eyes grow heavy and they droop down steadily even as he fights to cling to his idle thoughts and musings of the distant past.

In his last minutes awake he notices his horns scratched the ceiling when he shifted, leaving two deep gouges. Edd’s room was above the kitchen. Tom smiles to himself as he drifts off, he can practically hear what Edd would say to him if he found out. Hear the angry tone in his voice. See the pinched crinkle between his eyes.

Tom’s chest aches.

____________________________________________

Tom wakes up to the sound of shattering glass. He didn’t know there were any more windows in the house left to shatter after yesterday’s explosion. Following the source of the noise leads him to a crackling handheld radio laying in a field of broken crystal shards. Tom picks it up, examining it.

“T…t… get out … om… ing…Tom,” through the crackle of static Tom makes out his name and those two words. Even more importantly he recognizes the voice. His breath catches in his throat. He puts the radio to his ear and presses down the button to speak.

“Edd? Edd? Is that you? Did you just put this through my window?” Tom asks. Relief washes over his body. He didn’t even realize how tense he had been. He knew Tord would be coming back, but if Edd was here, Edd was still alive, maybe they could find Matt and do something about all this.

“Lost… om…. We lost Tom, get out of there,” finally the static clears and Tom’s body goes cold as he finally receives the entire message. That’s Edd’s voice alright. And that’s his tone of defeat as well. Tom’s stomach drops as he hears footsteps and the tinkling of broken glass shifting underfoot.

He looks up from his radio, and turns to face the now occupied doorway. The two well-dressed men from yesterday are there, two guns held level in their hands. Muzzles pointed directly at Tom. Between them is Tord.

Tom has a shard of glass in his hand and is leaping to get at Tord as soon as he realizes he has no out. He can’t shift again so soon after yesterday. His body simply cannot handle it. He can’t even remember the last time he ate. Was it one, two days ago?

One of the men goes to hit Tom but Tord stops him with a signal from one hand, and stops Tom with his other arm. The chip of glass in his hand breaks as it makes contact with Tord’s arm, screeching along it. Tord looks at him cooly, standing there with his broken piece of glass and his broken house and his broken fucking life.

He just stands there, regarding him.

“Tom, it’s time to go,” he says, and it’s that voice he hates more than anything. The voice with no airs, no mocking, no taunting. It’s that tone of finality because Tom is in check and Tord fucking knows it and there’s no point in even kicking him when he’s down because he has fallen so very, very far.

Tom goes to hit him, just slap him hard on the scarred side of his face. Tord catches his hand with his metal hand and holds it lightly. His hand is cool and smooth and when he moves his fingers Tom’s skin doesn’t even get pinched between the metal joints.

“Just fucking kill me, don’t drag this out, I am done with your bullshit,” Tom snarls. Every feature in his face has cold, useless fury written across it. All this anger. No physical backing behind it. He knows he looks pathetic.

That same guarded look is trained on him. Emotionless. Calm. Collected. The very opposite of what Tom is giving Tord. He hates him, he hates him, he hates him. For simultaneously being everything he wants to be and everything that he despises down to the very core of his being.

He gets lead out of the house like a child. He refuses to walk out the door. He tries to dig his feet into the rubble. Tord just keeps walking, dragging Tom over chunks of drywall and cement, careful not to pull him through any broken glass or sharp objects. He merely looks behind him once at the sullen form and gives Tom an exasperated look. 

When one of his lackeys goes to handcuff Tom, Tord stops him.

“He’s harmless right now, and when he isn’t that won’t do any good either way,” Tord says, and boy does that piss Tom off. Because he’s right. Because he’s spot on. Fuck he hates Tord with his stupid logic.

Tord sits next to him in the back seat as his lackeys drive up front. He leans over and gently touches Tom’s cheek. Tom slaps his hand away instantly, or tries to. He hurts his hand slamming it into a surprisingly resistant metal arm. Or maybe not so surprising considering it’s made of metal.

“Are you hurt? Besides your hand now, I suppose?” there’s a slight laugh to his voice, Tom can hear it in the undertone. He folds his arm and huddles away from Tord.

“Don’t touch me.”

Tord draws back looking moderately annoyed. “You can hold a petty grudge forever Tom, but it will do you no favors.”

“It’s. Not. Petty. To dislike someone who destroyed your house,” Tom says through gritted teeth, narrowing his eyes at Tord.

“Neither is it to dislike someone who burned off half your face, but it’s okay Tom, I forgive you,” Tord says, placing a hand over his heart and leaning into Tom’s personal space.

Tom turns to the driver, trying to make eye contact, “Hey you, I’ll kill him, I’ll open this door and kill us both right now if you don’t fucking get him away from me.” 

Tord laughs at that.

He stops laughing two seconds later when Tom opens the jeep door and leans out bodily.

That’s how Tom ends up handcuffed and placed in the trunk of the jeep, with what he is absolutely sure is a wholehearted and sincere apology from Tord. He wants a drink and a lighter so he can set this stupid rust bucket Jeep on fire with the four of them in it.

__________________________________________________

It’s a long ride. Like a really long ride. By the time they get to wherever they are going, Tom’s hunger is getting to him. It doesn’t just ache or rumble anymore. His stomach hurts. He feels exhausted, more so than usual. Nauseous even though there’s nothing in his stomach.

The trunk opens and Tord’s smug face greets him. Or maybe that’s just his face. Tom doesn’t know anymore, his head hurts too much to be able to tell.

“Alright Tom, get up and get out,” Tord says. Tom worms his way onto his back and gets his feet over the edge of the trunk. Then after a minute he hops out and onto the ground, pushing himself off from behind with his cuffed hands.

Then Tord uncuffs him.

“You couldn’t have done that a minute ago?” Tom says, and it’s with little bite behind it. He wavers on his feet.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Tord says, and he turns to lead Tom inside. The building they are standing in front of is a grey slab built into a mountainside. There are very few windows and most of it looks like it is actually in the mountain. Tord’s men open the doors and hold them, waiting for them to pass.

“Come now Tom, we haven’t got all day,” Tord says and turns to walk into the base. Tom looks at him for one moment. One long moment. He looks at the way the sun catches Tord’s hair. It looks like a wave of wheat, the kind his parents used to drive past when he was young. They lived in a rural area. On Sundays they would drive through the mountains, they used to look sort of like these ones.

Tom takes one step. Then another, and another. He is running in the opposite direction. He makes it less than thirty steps before he is keeling over, all sense of balance lost. There’s a shout and he is hitting the hard dirt, pebbles digging into his side. He lays there for a few seconds, minutes, hours, he doesn’t know. 

Then he is being pulled up out of the dirt, hands wiping at the rocks that stuck to his face.

“What’s wrong with you? Is something wrong?” It’s Tord’s voice and for once he doesn’t seem so smug, or cool, or collected. Concern is engraved in his features.  
Concern for what? Tom looks at him and blinks once, slowly.

“M’hungry.”

Tord closes his eyes and takes a long pause. 

“I declare war on a sovereign nation. Edd starts a rebel movement. Matt is working with some government intelligence agency. And you’re still a stupid drunk.”  
“Fuck you,” Tom spits, with the last of his anger he can muster.

“No, fuck you,” Tord says with real heat behind his words. It kind of startles him for a moment, the way Tord looks at him with his hard grey eyes, peering into his very being, who he is, what he thinks. He can feel him under his skin and in his mind. Tom is being lifted up and carried, he notes a few moments later. He realizes the jeep is less than ten feet away. Man is he pathetic.

He is brought to a room with a bed and a desk. There are plaques and insignias on the walls. Tord grabs a phone off the desk and dials. A few minutes later a knock sounds and he comes back with a tray of food. He sets it on the desk and picks up a cup of water handing it to Tom.

“Drink that before you eat, you’ll probably just throw it up if you don’t,” Tord says. Tom looks at him sullenly and lets himself sulk a bit before taking a drink. His headache lessens a minute fraction as the cool liquid hits his tongue. Tord hands him a slice of fruit.

“I’m not a child,” Tom says, refusing to take the fruit. 

“Stop acting like one and you won’t be treated like one,” Tord sighs.

Tom doesn’t move to take the fruit. He is hit by another wave of dizziness and the world starts to tilt again. Tord steadies him. He gets a hand on his face pushing a pressure point on his jaw. Fuck it hurts. Tom tries to ignore the spark it sends to his groin. Not here. Not now. Not for Tord. He opens his mouth to try and alleviate the pain and gets the piece of fruit shoved in.

“Eat it,” Tord says. Tom chews the fruit and swallows it. It isn’t that hard to sacrifice his pride once he tastes the food. His stomach locks up and demands more. When Tord hands him the plate Tom ignores him and proceeds to shove as much fruit into his mouth as possible until Tord stops him.

“You are going to make yourself sick and all this is going to be moot when you throw it up again.”

Tom swallows his mouthful and resigns himself to listening and taking smaller bites. He finishes and sighs in contentment. Without thinking about the implications, he lets himself fall asleep on Tord’s bed.

When he wakes up it’s because Tord is making some kind of high pitched whimper. Tom sits up and notices the proximity of the man lying next to him. He also notices that Tord is naked from what he can see above the sheets. He notes the scarred flesh covering the entire left side of his body. The gnarled skin trailing down his cheek, to his neck, to his shoulder, to his chest and so on and so on. It’s a waterfall of ugly wrinkled skin and it pauses where Tord’s metal arm begins.

Tom did that.

He owns every bit of that burned flesh as much as Tord does. He has to face the reality and the consequences of it just like Tord.

He watches as Tord clutches his metal arm and lets out another sound. It’s close to a dry sob. This time Tord jolts awake, turning to face Tom with wide eyes.   
“Does it hurt?” Tom asks, face blank. He’s giving Tord his own pokerface back to him.

Tord nods, panting and drawing his arm tighter to his side. He’s looking at Tom with these wide open eyes full of pain. Full of need. For what Tom doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. Tom comes to a realization.

It feels good to see him in pain. He knows that it’s an ugly thought, and he’s an ugly person for thinking it, but it’s true. It’s just as true as the words he lets flow from his mouth.

“Good. I hope it hurts. You deserve to feel the consequences of what you’ve done and if your conscience won’t inflict that pain, it’s a good thing your body will,” Tom finishes, looking down at Tord’s huddled form. He didn’t ask to be here. He didn’t ask to be near him again. Every second he is near Tord old stitches are coming undone and reminding him of how much his old wounds have festered over time.

He can’t survive here. He can’t breathe here. It’s like he is on mars. The atmosphere around Tord isn’t made for people like him to survive. For anyone really. Tord is doomed to die alone because he kills off anyone that gets too close. It’s inevitable. A reality of nature.

Eventually Tord will have to reconcile and realize that there’s no healing what’s between them. Tom doesn’t even know if it was ever wholesome to begin with. Tord opens one eye and glares at him. He opens his mouth, and in that cutting tone Tom knows so well he speaks.

“Why don’t you go drink yourself into the only version of you people can tolerate.”

Tom narrows his eyes at Tord. Who is he to disobey orders?

“I’d be doing that already if you hadn’t fucking abducted me. Point me to your bar and I’ll do that straight away.”

Tord jerks his uninjured hand over towards his desk. Tom opens the bottom drawer to find a sealed bottle of whisky. Not his drink of choice but if it helps him deal with Tord….

He doesn’t know how many drinks he has. He loses count after Tord’s noises of pain become background static. He knows he feels good. He’s drifting away like a ship unmoored, from all his problems, from all his pain. This is better so much better. He can feel again, he can laugh and he can cry and he does both.

And then he suddenly feels really, really bad.

The screaming starts again. He doesn’t know if it is in his head or outside it but it’s there and it won’t stop. Make it stop. Someone. Anyone. Please. The screaming reminds him of childhood and he can’t escape it no matter how many years pass by, it’s tied to him, dragging him down, dragging him under. Into the pit that was designated for him from the day he was born. 

He’s in the med bay and he hears Tord’s voice, a low hum, talking to a nurse, a higher pitched hum. 

“So he doesn’t need his stomach pumped?” Tord confirms.

“No, he should probably stay here and get an IV in him, he’s in very poor condition.”

“I’ll handle it,” Tord says, looking over at Tom. He looks like death, but if a medical professional says he isn’t quite there, well… it was time to have a talk with Tom.

“Sir, I really don’t-,” the nurse begins, looking worried as Tord goes to move Tom into a wheel chair.

“Your opinion is irrelevant at the moment, I am afraid, thank you for your consultation,” Tord cuts her off as he wheels Tom down the hallway. He watches the brown head loll in front of him like he is bobbing his head to music. It would be cute under other circumstances. And if Tord wasn’t livid. He blames himself a fair bit, of course. Direct an alcoholic to his favorite pastime.

Genius. 

But he was having one of his worse episodes with his old foe phantom limb. He was not the one who was pain free and sober who then decided to drink close to seven hundred fifty milliliters of whiskey. Combined with his exhaustion and malnutrition, that whiskey didn’t take too well to Tom. Tord initially had been terrified that he had found more of his stash of alcohol and given himself poisoning.

Now he was pissed and looking to rid Tom of an age old habit. He’d put the whole base on prohibition and deal with the mutiny later, rather than give Tom another drink.

He will never understand why Tom drinks. Where he goes when he’s attained that glassy eyed stupor. It’s painful. It’s so painful to see him like that. Disconnected and floating away. Drawing in on himself, tucking away the parts of him Tord knows. The parts he loves.

Tom stirs as they are on their way back to his room. He lets out a soft groan and then promptly vomits down his front finishing off with a whimper. Disgusting. Tord ignores him and continues to wheel Tom into his room and straight into his bathroom.

He locks the door. Then he helps Tom out of the wheelchair and moves him over to the toilet where another volley of vomit is hurled. He grimaces at the sound it makes hitting the rim.

“I wanna die….” Tom whines between dry heaves,

“Unfortunately it wasn’t a big enough bottle,” Tord says from his position sitting on the rim of the tub. Tom looks up at him with red rimmed eyes.

“Ugh… go away, just let me drown in here or something,” Tom moans as he puts his cheek against the toilet seat. Tord tries not to think about how his face has now made indirect contact with his ass.

He pulls Tom up by a fist full of his hair and looks him in his watery, red rimmed, voids of eyes. 

“You deserve to feel the consequences of what you’ve done and if your conscience won’t inflict that pain, it’s a good thing your body will,” Tord says cooly, and then drops Tom’s head as he looks about ready to heave again. He shows some element of compassion by rubbing Tom’s back as he continues to empty out an already empty stomach. Fuck. Maybe he should bring him back to the med bay for an IV. 

“You should stop doing things that hurt yourself. You indirectly harm everyone around you,” Tord said as he continued to pat Tom’s shaking back. Tom pulls himself up from the toilet, a thin string of drool trialing from his lower lip.

“I don’t need you of all people looking out for me,” Tom spat.

Tord has had it. He grips Tom by the cheeks and glares at him with the nastiest look he can dredge up. 

“I don’t think you get this yet. You can’t take care of yourself. As is evidenced by where we are now, by where you were twenty four hours ago, and where you were one hundred and sixty eight ago. You drank yourself to this point. You starved yourself to this point. You ignored evacuation orders and that’s exactly how you landed up here, in my territory, in my hands. Your decisions brought you here Tom, no one else’s,” Tord said. 

He watched as Tom withered bit by bit as he spoke, feeling small satisfaction as the ire drained out of his posture and resignation overtook it.

“So we are going to sit here and deal with your shitty decisions just like I’ve had to with mine. You get water and if you can grow the fuck up over the course of the next hour, maybe I’ll get you an advil.” With that he lets Tom go and sits back on the tub. He isn’t going to leave him there. He’s actually afraid for Tom’s well-being under all this spite he feels coiling in him like writhing snakes.

“You know what the issue with you is? You don’t apply yourself. You clearly can do something but you would rather waste away a miserable slob at the bottom of society,” Tord enunciates each word clearly and they dig into Tom like little knives as he tries to stop himself from throwing up.

Tom swallows his bile long enough to turn his head out of the toilet and look at Tord. “You know what your problem is? It isn’t whether you can apply yourself, it’s whether you should. Because at the end of the day,” Tom stops to swallow down a dry heave and wipe some spit from the side of his mouth, “ you’re a terrible person and nowhere does that more clearly show than in your actions and the effect they have on the people around you.”

Tord looks at him, opens his mouth to retort, but refrains as Tom starts to heave into the toilet again.

Half an hour later Tom has stopped throwing up and is lying against the cool tile floor, letting Tord run his fingers through his matted hair that sticks to his forehead. He still looks pale, so deathly pale with a cold sweat running down his entire body and these tiny tremors that wrack his thin frame every now and again.

When he starts to snore noisily out of his nose, Tord nudges him back awake and brings him up to his own unsteady feet. He manages to get Tom back in the bed and pulls the sheets over him. 

While he sleeps Tord empties out every ounce of alcohol in his room, including a nice bottle of wine that was a gift from some ambassador from some country that doesn’t even exist anymore under his regime.

Tord watches Tom sleep and a thought occurs to him as he does.

He spent all this time distancing himself from Tom, pushing him farther and farther away so he wouldn’t hurt him. And Tom goes and acts like himself and renders all that moot. Wandering onto a battlefield when his house gets half exploded (Tord had marked the house as a green zone, but things happen) then engaging a mother fucking tank in front of twenty armed soldiers.

He wants to laugh at how pathetic he is to have fallen for someone who is so absolutely hopeless when it comes to self-preservation. Tom does what Tom wants, regardless of whether it falls inline with sane logic, basic human decency, the laws of physics. He just is his own constant. If Tord could find a way to weaponize sheer obstinacy, the war would be over in a second.

Tord is scared. He will allow him to admit that to himself. He’s had guns pointed dead on in his face, IED’s go off just after he cleared the blast zone. He’s had well over a third of his skin burned off.

But nothing scares him like the thought of Tom letting himself go somewhere Tord can’t come and drag him back from. Of him finding some secret corner in his mind, or some hidden trick that lets him let go of Tord entirely. Let’s him be the one to walk out of this without any scars.

__________________________________________

Tom wakes up and the window is open and bright light is streaming into the room. He opens his eyes and immediately regrets it. He presses the heel of his hand over his eyes and rubs them against his eyelids. He curls in on himself and tucks his head into his stomach, trying to count his breaths so he doesn’t throw up.

Then again, he is in Tord’s bed.

Tom only pulls his head out of his hands when he feels the bed dip down. He looks up to see the room is dark and Tord is sitting next to him.

“We are going to meet with Edd in under forty eight hours.”

He says it light. Conversationally. Like he and Edd are still friends. Like they both don’t have several failed assassination attempts towards the other under their belts.

“Why?” It’s the only question he can think to ask.

“We are going to negotiate the terms of a hostage transfer,” Tord says, giving him a meaningful look. 

Tom sits and thinks for a minute. Tord gives him that look when he is waiting for Tom to figure something out. To catchup to his hidden meaning. He puzzles Tord’s words for a moment and then….

Oh.

It hits him that he is the hostage. Of course. This wasn’t Tord coming to get him because he was something of sentimental value. Because he wanted to reconcile things, or rekindle their relationship.

It was Tord playing a zero sum game and Tom was just another piece he could throw away on his way to putting Edd in checkmate. What was he a castle? No, too valuable. A rook? No. The reality was Tom was a pawn. Anyone would have done, he just happened to be stupid enough to walk right into Tord’s hands. He was replaceable, he was expendable. 

Tom doesn’t even know why he’s angry, but he is. He can’t even look at Tord. Why did he expect anything different? Why does he feel surprised? Why, after so many cuts and bruises, after all the pain Tord has bled out of him can he still feel pain?

Is he ever going to get used to this?

Tord goes to put a hand on his shoulder and Tom lands his first solid hit since he threw a harpoon into Tord’s stupid robot. He gets him right in the jaw and he can hear Tord’s teeth clack. He gets a second one into his stomach before that hand is catching him around the throat, pinning him down to the bed. 

Tom feels something wet drip onto his face. He looks up to see Tord breathing heavily, eyes wide and wild, blood dripping from where his tooth cut his lip.  
“Why are you fucking like this? I thought you would be happy to be getting away from me in a week?” Tord snarls out the question, gripping Tom tighter and Tom hates him. He hates himself. But most of all, he hates Pavlov. He can feel it. His pants getting tight as his body starts to remember being in this situation several times over.

Pinned down. Under Tord. Scared out of his wits but pissed off as hell too.

Tord looks down and sees the bulge. He looks up at Tom. His face is scrunched and angry, eyes these narrow little slits. He’s glaring holes into Tord and Tord has no idea how he can make this better. How he can fix any of this.

Tom meanwhile is scrambling. Scrambling for something, anything he can do to convey all this hurt back onto Tord. He obviously can’t do it physically. So he reaches and claws and desperately wracks his brain for the magic sentence that will drive a stake through Tord’s cold, unfeeling heart.

There is this dead silence between them where each can hear the other’s breathing, hard and heavy. 

Then Tom speaks. He’s found them. He’s found the magic words.

“I’m glad you’re giving me back to Edd, he’s a better lay than you ever were.”

That’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. He cuts off Tom’s air completely and he is gripping Tom’s crotch like a vise with his organic hand. Tom tries to make this high pitched whimper, but it comes out breathy and distorted. He can barely breathe, let alone speak. 

Tord releases his throat and moves his hand down to pull off Tom’s pants. He just rips them. Uses his metal hand to tear them off, letting the seams pop and unravel and all he can think about is all this open canvas that is his. His. It’s always been his, it will always be his. Tom is his. 

Because he has no one if he doesn’t have Tom. There is no one broken the way Tom and him are. Their jagged edges are complementary. Unintentional matches shaped for each other by tragedy and trauma. 

He sucks on his fingers and pushes them into Tom, and he is pushing up hard as he rakes his organic hand across Tom’s chest leaving raised scratches as he goes. Tom lets out a gasp and he is trying to claw Tord back in return but Tord pins his hand down. 

“Say it,” Tord growls as he pushes up again with his metal hand.

Tom looks at him and he purses his mouth. Tord waits for him to speak. He waits for him to say something. He gets a wad of spit in his face for his efforts.

He lets out a curse in his native tongue before he pulls out his fingers. He gives them a real coat of lube before pushing them back in. He doesn’t bother to watch his nails or how wide he is spreading his fingers. He doesn’t bother to avoid catching on Tom’s rim. He strokes at Tom’s dick, backing off every time he notices Tom’s breaths get short.

He watches as Tom gets more and more agitated. He is staring Tord down and Tord hates him. He hates him for his baseless arrogance, for his addictive habits, for all of it. He hates Tom as much as he loves him and he loves him so much he wants to hurt him and tear him apart and see the side of Tom no one else has seen.

Tord pulls Tom up into a sitting position, taking his belt off his waist and using it to secure Tom’s hands behind his back. He pushes Tom back down and he just lets himself go. He is biting and sucking at every available inch of skin, ignoring Tom as he squirms and writhes. He bites hard.

A couple are hard enough to bleed, and those ones are the ones that make Tom buck his hips, letting out moans he would be attempting to stifle if his hands weren’t bound behind his back. Tord sinks in a finger up to the knuckle, teasing at Tom’s prostate.

He uses his metal hand to grip Tom around the base of his cock. He slowly tightens it as he pushes his finger harder, noting how Tom’s breaths get harsher, sharper, and the little vocal slips come more steadily, until finally….

“Tord please, god stop please,” Tom begs. Tord stops. Tom is just panting, his chest has blood beading up in some places and the sting does nothing but make his cock ache harder than it already is. Pain is the only think Tord ever gives him that he can enjoy. Tord runs a hand across some of the blood, smearing it.

He moves his hand to grip Tom by the throat again. He can feel all this rage in him still. Tom is covered with his marks, his bites, he’s bleeding for him, but it still isn’t enough. It will never be enough. 

Tord lets out a low whistle and snaps his fingers. It sounds like he is calling a dog. Tom squeezes his eyes shut tightly, and a very small, single tear leaks out the side of one of his eyes. It escapes him no matter how much he wishes it would stay down.

Tom cums across his stomach. He refuses to look at Tord. Tord refuses to touch him. He just looks. Looks at Tom bloody and broken and ashamed. And it kills him to say the only thing he feels at that sight is an odd sense of nostalgia. 

Tord comes to a sudden realization. It hits him like a weight, like a ton of bricks.

“This is the only way I am ever going to be close to you. Like this. Like we are now,” he says, whisper soft. Tom still doesn’t look at him. He looks at the ceiling. At the window. He wishes the blinds were open again so he could distract himself from this kind of pain with another kind of pain.

Tord turns away, back to Tom. Tom looks at him then, looks at his back. At the nape of his neck. He looks at the defeated slant to his shoulders. He sits up.

“Why did you bring me here, was it really just to get at Edd?” Tom asks, because he is starting to see the holes, starting to see the cracks breaking in Tord’s poker face.

“The only thing that matters is that if you stay here, you are going to continue to get hurt.”

“Why do you act like that is some new discovery? How is the fact that you being in proximity being painful is some unforeseen consequence? You knew this. You chose this.”

“I did,” Tord says, and his voice sounds raw. Tom can’t see his face, and he knows right now, he does not want to see the look Tord has on his face. He knows he won’t get any satisfaction from this conversation.

Tord thinks he gets why Tom drinks. He gets stuck in this cycle, in this rut, where his emotions build up and there’s no outlet. No relief. There’s just pain, and it build, and it build, and the only way to defeat it is by finding a different outlet for the pain. By finding temporary demon to deal with the one that is always eating him alive. Just for a temporary respite. Just to make the time left better even if it is briefer.

Tord turns to face Tom he undoes the belt and then he looks at him, dead in the eyes. He has always liked Tom’s eyes. He isn’t quite sure why, they make him feel things in a way he can’t quite describe. Looking into Tom’s eyes is the closest he has ever felt to being whole.

“I deserve this. I deserve you, in this way,” Tord said, looking at Tom calmly. He seems calm, tranquil, accepting. He seems like he has finally given in to fighting against the odds that have always been stacked against him

There’s this sort of unspeakable pain written across his face that Tom can neither understand, nor grasp the root of. He reaches out and for the first time, gingerly touches the scarred half of Tord’s face.

“I am sorry. I am sorry you chose this, and I am sorry I had to do this to you,” Tom says as he runs a hand down the burned side of his face. Tord grabs his hand gingerly, just holding it in his organic hand. Tom grasps his hand back in return.

“I am sorry for everything that I have given to you that I can never take back.”

“No use in mourning it now, what’s done is done, I’ll live. I always do.”

Tord smiles. It turns down at the edges, and half of it is scar tissue, but he tries, and Tom thinks he is trying to be genuine. 

“Can I kiss you?”

“Are you afraid to take my maiden kiss without permission?”

“Tom, if you can give me one thing, just give me this, can I kiss you?” Tord says, looking at him dead serious. 

Tom nods, just a quick dip. Tord threads a hand through his hair and pulls him in close. He feels Tord’s lips on his and then they are gone. Just a short, chaste kiss. Then he is gone from the room and Tom doesn’t see or hear of him until nightfall.

They lay next to each other, not speaking, not touching, just enjoying a silence that isn’t tense for once. It’s just there. They are just there. Existing together, neither of them floating away. They’re tied down here with their simple problems and their shared experiences and pain.

And for once it isn’t too much or too little. Too heavy, too hard, too angry, too brittle.

It’s enough.

It’s enough lying here, looking at Tom, looking into his empty eyes and finally, finally Tord can put his finger on what he likes about Tom’s eyes so much. You see, most people have these eyes you can see yourself reflected back in. But not Tom’s. His eyes swallow you whole and spit you out naked. Tord never really knew who he was until he met Tom. But he’s found parts of himself, recovered bits and pieces of him that had chipped off and fallen away. He finds these things whenever he goes searching into the blackness of Tom’s eyes. Into the unlit and final dark.

___________________________________

Tom is smiling the entire way to the board room where Edd is supposedly being held. He is going to see one of his dearest friends. Alive. He is going to go home with him. They can live in the same house, on the same street after this is all over. They’ll have to rebuild the stairs and the whole front of the house, sure, but he’s sure people will be willing to help rebuild their lives once this is all over.

They enter the room and it’s neat and clean. There is a single red insignia hanging on the wall, along with a white board, and a few chairs and desk pushed off to the side, and that is it. Standing at the far end of the room in his pressed green suit that looks somewhere between dapper and just a bit goofy, is Edd. His eyes move up and immediately lock on Tom’s. 

Edd looks ecstatic to see him. This wide grin spreads across his face and it’s as if Tord isn’t even in the room, the way he looks at Tom. Relief is written all over his features. Honestly, how low are these two’s opinions of each other? 

He looks like a giant kid under all that scruff and it makes Tom hitch a smile crooked on one end of his mouth. Edd looks ready to bound over to Tom when Tord raises his arm, palm out and facing Edd. Edd’s eyes widen. He takes a step back.

“Tord what are you doing? I gave you your servicemen back alive, give me Tom” Edd said as he looks between the two of them. “Tom does he have something up his sleeve?”

“I assure you I have nothing up my sleeve aside from more metal. That and a laser with enormous destructive power.”

Tom can hear it. The low thrum that he hadn’t quite picked out from before amid his excitement at the prospect of reuniting with Edd.

“Oh my god. You can’t kill Edd,” Tom says and he grabs Tord’s arm moving it away from Edd.

Tord looks at him and smiles this sad, bitter smile, “That’s what I said! ‘You can’t kill him! He’s your best friend!” Tord said in a mocking high pitched tone. Then he dropped his pitch to normal, “But he’s not. Not anymore. Now he is an idea Tom, one of many that can poison the well and get good, naïve people killed. There is no room for treason here, and that is exactly what Edd represents now. We all have choices, Tom. He chose this.”

The finality in Tord’s voice terrifies Tom and he looks at him, wide eyed and pale faced. He looks worse than he did when Tord thought he was dying. Tord wants to reach out, to comfort him. To tell him he has to do this so this can all be over and he can finish being the worst part of himself. The part he hates as much as Tom does. He moves his hand out of Tom’s grip knocking him back to the side. Tom gapes at him wide eyed from his position on the floor. 

He looks pale and small. So very small as he lays there on the ground with Tord towering above him. He is in his atmosphere, stuck in his gravitational pull, and there is no air and no out.

He watches in slow motion as Tord swings his arm back. Tord starts a mental countdown. He has five seconds until the safety is off and he can fire immediately, five seconds to aim and finish it all.

One. His arm starts his journey forward. Two, his arm is passing by the Red Insignia on the wall. Three, his arm has passed by Tom. At four he has lined his arm up with Edd. At five Tord is dropping to his knees and screaming.

His hand prefired at two point five seconds.

And that is how it all ends.

Because this is reality. There is no time for goodbyes, teary farewells. Tom never once said he loved him. There’s just cliffhangers, half-truths and jagged endings that never make sense and tear wounds that never heal. Tord’s face is healed, yes. His arm aches late at night when he is alone with his thoughts, but it’s functional.

However this… this….

Tord will be slowly bleeding out from this wound for the rest of his life.

__________________________________________

“You set this up.”

“I did. A week before the former Red Leader even made contact with the deceased his arm was sent in for routine maintenance. I was a sleeper cell working in the lab for five years and I specialized in prosthetics.”

“You wanted to show him what happens when he misdirected brute force.”

“I did.”

“So you sabotaged his arm to go off prematurely knowing he would probably incinerate an innocent.”

“I did. I could have never have dreamed it would be someone so critical though. I rewired his arm to skip it’s warm up routine. It usually gives a five second delay to allow him time to aim and fully heat up the core, which is still plenty lethal without warm up time.”

“Thank you for telling your account of the story, this will be archived along with the rest of the first hand accounts we collect. Don’t worry about leaks. Neither your name nor your codename will be tied to this account.

She thanks him. She leaves. Matt stays.

He looks out the window. The sky is this deep cobalt blue, fading slowly to a deeper black. A dim skyline winks in the distance, the power grid is back online and people are moving back into the cities again. Matt has seen children, real, living children playing in the streets again.

It’s nice. It’s one of many very nice things to come out of this whole ordeal.

But even that is like dropping pennies in the void. He pulls the shades down, blocking out the fantastic view from forty stories up. There’s this one hour in the day Matt knows is coming. Where the sky turns this very specific shade of blue, and an aging man, in a faraway place, very dark, and very quiet, watches the sky every day through a thin glass window just as he is, just as Edd is somewhere on the other side of the city, waiting for that hue so he can stare down old ghosts until the color passes and fades off with the dying day.

**Author's Note:**

> constructive criticism appreciated in the comments or in the askbox over @plsnskanks.tumblr.com


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